Favorites from the week...

My kids hate it when I ask, "What was your favorite thing about...?"  They don't like picking one thing. So I ask, "What was one of your favorite things?"  This post is full of favorite moments from this week. 

We're near the end of camp. My boxes and bags are empty and the extras passed along for Spring camp on the coast. Our last session with kids was this morning. We had 22 between the ages of 4 and 9. We've had a great week with them. It's always a challenge to teach through translation. This week I've been blessed with a fantastic translator in Snjezana . It's also challenging to "teach" kids who already know most bible stories. Keeping their attention is my biggest challenge. We've done some fun activities and games which they seemed to have enjoyed. This camp is often used as an outreach from one friend to another so a few children weren't familiar with the stories. One little girl told me the first day: the New Testament is about Jesus and the Old Testament is just fairy tales. It was fun to see her realization that these stories are true. Three men were saved in the fiery furnace, Elijah was fed by ravens and angels, Jonah surrvived three days in a fish, and the Israelites were given daily food from heaven. :-)

One of my favorite things was watching everyone swim. For some it's their rare chance to swim all year. They swim and they swim and they swim and they sit in the sun and they eat and they swim some more. The temperature is refreshing but comfortable and the high salt content adds buoyancy. 

This morning during the worship service I looked through the crowd of people and saw - Croatians, Austrians, Slovenians, Germans, Americans, and Macedonians. It's my favorite part of this work. The Spirit is so evident. I love hearing a lesson in English, being translated into Croatian, while huddled on the steps an Austrian translates quietly for the Germans. I love singing tunes I know by heart, but the pronunciations call for all my attention.  A lifetime of singing those words in English allows for the heartfelt worship in Croatian now. 

Our team's favorite meal memory will probably the morning without bread. Croatians must have bread with every meal. One morning apparently someone forgot. There was no big bucket of bread next to the silverware trays at breakfast. We could see the confusion, then a bit of panic set in. Where is the bread?  After most had started eating the Cinta van pulled up with a large box of bread - maybe 15 large loaves. While it was sliced out of sight in the bread vultures started to circle. Once it came out of the kitchen there was a touch of chaos as the slices were snatched up.  It was quite comical to the American observer. And, yes, we procured our slices too. 

Zvonko might be my favorite non-Dominic Varazdin church member. ;-)  A few years ago his wife Zlata passed away from lung cancer. It was sad for us to be far away at that time. I'm sure there were many hard days since her passing but the light I see in him is so inspiring. He is a hard worker for God. His story involves a man at work talking to him about Jesus for nearly 10 years before he was ready to listen. He's been a light in his gypsy village ever since. One day last week I didn't need my alarm because Zvonko was there mowing the lawn. Zvonko fills communion trays. Zvonko leads the early morning prayer time here at camp. And, shocking to me, there was Zvonko last night in a video of the younger teens at another camp, participating in silly games, leading small groups of kids in bible study. It's so, so good to see a Christian man still using his life for good, despite heartache. 

Thank you for your prayers for Rachel's food and health. Many of you know I was really concerned about her food here at camp. We have been very blessed with understanding cooks. They've done their best, and while she's not eaten everything they gave her, she was well fed. Only one afternoon did her stomach bother her, and just for a bit. One cook in particular has been really helpful. She's fed Rachel but also helped me with a craft involving their microwave and their freezer. I had one last Kansas Russell Stover box so I gave it to her. I explained that people prayed ahead of time about Rachel's food, and she started to cry. Another unexpected mutual blessing. 

Today was a cool rainy day. About 20 degrees cooler than the previous days here. No swimming today. It poured down rain at lunch time. It's very dry vegetation and rocky here so the water runs quickly. The air cooled after the storm and everyone raced for their jackets and socks and shoes - so as to not get sick - that is still a belief here. We Americans and the Macedonians (about 6 of us) are the only ones left in sandals. It will be great sleeping tonight. :-)

Tomorrow will be our final day here. It's mostly a free day with a traditional fish meal in a the evening. There will also be a baptism in the afternoon. It'll be a good day. Then to Zagreb Tuesday afternoon and the long trek home on Wednesday. Thanks for your prayers - it sounds too cliché- but we really mean it!!

Time for Camp at Cinta

We've had a wonderful first several days in Varazdin. A lot of our time has been with the Dominic family. We have shared meals, laughter, and of course ice cream. Over the past 10 years they have become so dear to our family. I love being in their home, with their children, and hearing how God is working in their lives. While we are certainly missing our boys, Rachel and I love being here so much.

Rachel says her favorite thing so far is walking through the Square in Varazdin. For the first time we toured the inside of the Varazdin castle with Emily. That was probably my favorite new thing so far.

Since we've been here last, the church has changed locations. Their building is now in a very visible place and the members here have done so much work. It is really a great blessing and I know they will use it well.

The Varazdin church is a very busy group of people. Right now they have about 30 attenders, including children. Other than a new building, they have recently hosted an ongoing beginners English class, two Let's Start Talking teams, Alpha Course, published a magazine, a radio program, continuing to grow "Croatia for Christ", hosted camps for teenagers, visited Ukraine to encourage them through their unsettled times...and probably more that I just don't know.

Tomorrow we will repack all our bags and boxes and prepare to leave for camp early Tuesday morning. We will go in the church van with several other people. I'm excited to see a new part of this country. If our internet service works I will write a new update there.

Thank you all for your prayers. God is answering them. Please pray this week for Rachel and her diet requirements. It's about to get more complicated. Thanks!

(Please pardon any errors I don't catch. This is a tiny screen for much typing. :-) )

Broj šest

It's been awhile!  A lot of our most recent trips have been documented on our facebook page.  There are a lot of pictures and posts there.

Soon we will be in the air again, heading to Croatia for our 6th mission trip.  Rachel, Emily, and I are so excited to get there and get busy.  We will be helping with a multi-congregational  "camp" (retreat) on the coast.  This is something I haven't done in our previous 5 trips.  But it is something I'm familiar with since camp is how our family was first connected with the Varazdin church.  In 2005 (I think) my dad went to camp on the island of Krk off the coast of Croatia.  There the people of Croatia took up a place in his heart, which he also passed on to us.

In about a week we will be doing the same thing.  Already the people of Croatia are dear to Rachel and me, we are so excited to share that love with Emily too.  It's about time to pack our bags and journey across the ocean.  We sure would appreciate your prayers as we work with about 20 kids, and spend time with families from several congregations across the northern part of Croatia.

If our internet is available we will update both the Heart for Croatia facebook page and this blog.  It's always an encouragement to know you are out there following us.  We'd love to hear from you.  For the next couple weeks as you go to bed, remember we will just be waking up starting a new day.  We sure would love a covering of prayer to start each day.

Thank you for your prayers, thank you for your support.  We appreciate each one of you.

Thank you for 5 years!

Thoughts from June 29, 2013....

Imagine you are going to travel for 24 hours to the other side of the world to live with a family you don't know for 10 days. During that time you'll work tirelessly, have a different sleep pattern, eat different food, and constantly deal with a language barrier. Then you'll go home and wait a year till you see them again and repeat the process. How many times do you think this would have to happen before you felt like they were true friends? How long till you felt like their home was your home, where you understand the dos and don'ts? How long till you could accurately put away dishes in their cabinets and food in their pantry? How long till you could joke and tease without the fear of misunderstanding? How long till the small talk is unnecessary because there are deep and intimate issues to discuss and pray about? I can tell you, for each of these to be completely true, it was three years for us. We've now been to Croatia five times, three of which we have stayed in the Dominic's home. Each year the greeting phase shortens and the grieving at good-bye lengthens. The work there is equally as important as it is everywhere else, but for our family God has nestled the people of Brezje and Varazdin deep into our hearts. We think of them no differently than our own family. Rajan, Hana, Rahela, and Maja are as important to us as our own children. When we are with the Dominics there are moments of heart wrenching stress as we share our struggles, worries, and decisions; but there are moments to balance of unexplainable joy and laughter as we share stories from the past year and laugh about pointless things like chickens and small bags of sugar.

Many of you probably heard me say this was probably the last year for awhile for us visiting Croatia. We had reached our five year commitment. It was time for something new, someone else, etc. I suppose God got quite a kick out of me thinking I knew the future. While we are always careful to never commit for next year while we are there in Croatia, Ray and I both knew without a doubt our work is not over yet. Time will tell when God will have us return, but for now we are immensely grateful for all who have helped us in the past five years. During that time we have raised approximately $33,000.00 to pay for expenses. Donations have ranged from $10-$1000, and everything in between . We’ve baked approximately 3000 Easter cookies. And we’ve had aproximately 90 different donors. Many of you have faithfully given each year and for that we are especially thankful. Thank you just doesn’t seem like enough so we pray God will give you a sense of gratitude on our behalf and that He will bless you because of your support of us and therefore faithfulness to Him. Sincerely, Ray, Laura, Rachel & Jonathan

Unfortunately I am not able to update our blog for some reason from where we are staying, but it is working here at the church.  I will try again this evening to post about our travel time here.  It was really good.  Church this morning was a blessing.  It is always so fun to see each other again....a little taste of heavenly reunions.  We are all doing well and looking forward to the week to come.

I'm starting to see a trend.....it's 1 a.m.....for real! There have been so many great moments the last few days. One today was when Ray and were walking in Cakovec (a village near Brezje where Mladen lives and we played baseball the first year). There was a little street fair going on. I asked a lady what it was for, since it was a Friday afternoon, and she told me the children learn to make traditional crafts and items at school during the year and then they have this fair and sell the items at the end of the school year. So that was a nice little story. I bought one of her items. Then we walked down two more tables and some kids were looking at us a whispering. I guessed we looked different and I had on my ACU shirt so I think they were talking about that too. Then one says, "Jura! Jura!" (a very common name here, so I didn't think anything of it...yet) and lo and behold it's one of the kids we played baseball with two years ago. And then another. And then another one. Jura immediately asked me, "How is Jonathan?" :-) They were selling little painted wooden step-stools and children's chairs, so when you see the one in our house you will know where it came from.

We also spent more time with several church members the last few days. We've been to Zvonko and Zlata's home in the gypsy village. We've been to Darko and Miljenka's apartment. We visited Nadica's house twice. We've been to Josip and Ana's twice. Tomorrow we will go to Sasa and Danjella's house for dinner. But first we will have sarma, a Croatian dish with cabbage and sausage and potatoes. Apparently it is a "winter" food, but they are making it special for us since Nancy always talks so highly of it and I wondered what it was.

Tonight we did a mini-marriage seminar with 5 couples attending. It was blessed to be sure. We were anxious about the difference in cultures and generations, but of course we are all far more similar than different. We talked about God's commandements for husbands and wives to love and respect one another and the differences between the two. Then we briefly talked about the "5 Love Languages", which is available in Croatian so some were familiar. But the fun came when they all did the Lion, Otter, Beaver, Golden Retriever tests. I didn't know if it would make sense to them, but they loved it. And I could tell by their responses that they truly understood the concept. For those who know them, Josip and Ana are both Lions, but she is also a high Golden and he is a very high Otter. Ray commented that their house must be very loud. That was met with a lot of laughing and head shaking from their son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. Ana assured us she is a very faithful (Golden Retriever) Lion.

There will be more stories to tell when we are face to face. We thank you for your prayers and encouragement. We certainly can sense them. This week has flown by and though we are more than ready to see our kids, we wish there was more time too. Next time..... :-) We love you all!

Here we are again headed towards 1 am, however this time it is because of a full schedule, not a lack of sleepiness. I can't describe to you what a blessing our brothers and sisters here are to us. We come to encourage, but just as the teacher learns more than the students, they are the ones blessing us. Again tonight we were blessed with time together talking to God. This time with only Mladen and Renata. It is mutually a relief and encouragement to talk about worries and challenges and dreams as an international church family. And to pray and cry together as we seek what God would have for both of our families.

Today was another busy day. We took Hana to school and then shopped for lunch ingredients in the local open-air market (one of my favorite Croatian places!) We then registered our visit at the police station and then spent lunch and planning with Kavan and Molly. Their LST information meeting was tonight and it went well, from an observer's point. I will allow them to update you more specifically.

Following the meeting was Wednesday night class for the congregation. It was nice to see more familiar faces. Especially Darko and his wife, Miljenka. We look forward to time in their home tomorrow evening.

Last night we spent time with the weekly prayer meeting. As I thought about it today I continued to be in awe of the Spirit's aid in helping us all communicate. Instead of the common term "spiritual eyes", we definitely have been blessed with "spiritual ears". We cannot understand the literal words, but the emotions, the train of thought, the heart, shines through and leaves no doubt. It is in the eye contact. It is in shared tears. It is in a hand grasped during prayer. It is in a hug that communicates a year's worth of missing each other. If you don't believe the Spirit is alive and well today, come to Croatia. They will show you.